Burning
by Answer
Summary: Cinderella's prince contemplates the passion inspired by one dance.


You have no idea how much this hurts, do you? You couldn't have. I cannot believe – I try not to believe – that anyone could knowingly cause suffering like this. I miss you – want you – so much that it's like grasping red hot coals yet being unable to loosen my grip. I can't let go. Somehow, something wants me to believe that this torture is the lesser of two evils. Can I believe in an evil that great?

On the other hand, maybe you do know. Maybe you do. It was only three dances, I tell myself. Three nights. Three balls. Three chances that slipped through my fingers. And you were masked. Never in history as we know it has a man been so bewitched by so fleeting an encounter with an unseen temptress. Your hands, sometimes they hold me still. In my dreams I see your eyes, feel trapped by your warm, soft fingers. I have never seen your face, yet that seems so unimportant a fact that I often forget it. I believe that I have seen you, and that you are quite simply the most beautiful girl not only in my father's wretched kingdom, but in all of creation. Your features escape me, but your beauty is intoxicating.

Poisonous.

Maybe you did know what you were doing. There is much talk, you know, of girls in this day and age forced into marriages to cold, heartless, faithless excuses for men. Not a moment's consideration is given to women who manipulate gentlemen of power. I've been trying so hard for so long to forget you, to forget those dances, that I've tried to convince myself of everything imaginable. In fits of frustration, you have been a harlot, a power-seeking, gold-digging monster, caring nothing for me and with your crystal eyes set only on my crown. The image never lasts for long. Like everything else, like every other thought, it dissolves into your shape, into the memory of your presence. All I can remember is the sensation of holding your hands, of moving through the dance steps with you as though we were alone in the room, our bodies flowing together as one.

It is as I catch myself in these memories that I think I realise a different truth. I begin to think that I am right to think that you know how this feels, only because you feel it too. Somehow, even in the blessed perfection of that dance, there is a space between us that neither of us can cross. And then I remember the music ending, the last dying strains the cue for me to release your hands, for your head to turn, still obscured by the mask. I remember the strange way in which you seemed to dissolve into the heaving crowd, fading like a dream, returning a mere ghost to haunt me. In moments of abstraction, I seem to remember a flash of longing, even regret in your eyes, as though you long to share some secret but cannot. Maybe you suffer too.

I wish you would share that secret with me. I wish it more than anything else. I would exchange everything I have to find you, nothing I have ever held dear can compare to this consuming desire I have for you. I now no longer care for my future as the ruler of my people, as their lord and master – I now no longer care for anything that may come, but that I wish you to be by my side in everything.

Do you know how much that hurts?

It isn't just me. My family, even the servants – they're concerned for me. Even as my father's health fails, as my sister consorts with the valet, as mother is seen openly flirting with members of the court – even as everything could crumble about our ears, they feign anxiety about my condition. Lovesick, that's what they call it. It's a debilitating condition, it clutches at my throat, causes a fever, occasions outbursts I have no hope of controlling. My mind and body are no longer mine to control. I can never seem to break free of the vision of you.

The irony of the situation is almost painful in itself. My father was concerned that I spent too long in the company of too many different women. "The list changes every month!" he complained. "There will soon be not an eligible woman in this kingdom whom you have not already alienated by casting her aside when someone better came along." An exaggeration, I assure you, but a concern nonetheless. That was what the ball was for. As close to an ultimatum as my lenient parents could manage. I was to select a mate there, to procure her hand in marriage, to settle down, start a family. It backfired spectacularly. There are now no longer a string of women upon whom I can call for a few hours' pleasant company, none from whom I can make at least a token attempt to search for a wife. There's only you. You're all I want.

Who are you? No, perhaps that is not the question that interests me the most. I have met so many ladies, so many daughters of dukes and earls and lords, all so proud to display the titles and honours bestowed upon their families by people no more awe-inspiring to me than my own grandparents and suchlike, generally individuals in whom I felt little or no interest. No, your position in life is nothing to me. I begin to think that I should not care even if you were a scullery maid! What I want to know is why you would not reveal your identity. Because that's what hurts me the most. It is not the flame of passion itself, but being torn over whether or not I wish it to keep burning. If you adore me even half as much as I do you, then I will devote my life to you in a moment. Yet if you care nothing for me, if the pursuit of my hand was but a project, a goal abandoned in pursuit of something else, then I want nothing more than to be told and left to pour a hopelessly small stream of water upon an inferno that is already well beyond control.

For some reason, it strikes me that you would find this funny – but this is the worst thing that has happened to me in my entire life. Indeed, I cannot fathom why you would find such a thing amusing, for I cannot think that you have felt much hardship in your life – no one that has would be considered 'eligible' by the standards of my social class. Yet something about you was certainly different. Perhaps it was empathy. Hardly a common or desirable trait among the upper classes, yet when I sensed that you possessed it, I was not in the least concerned. If you have empathy, then you will know. You _will_ know how much this hurts.


End file.
